Health

                                   Neurodermatitis

I’ve always been a nervous wreck.

When I was twenty-one I went to a doctor with stomach pain

and he prescribed me tranquilisers.

When I was twenty-two and twenty-three

I had a nervous rash – a neurodermatitis –

on the outside of my left upper arm

that scabbed and suppurated constantly, staining my shirts’ sleeves,

and resisting all medical intervention

until it finally faded away when I was twenty-four,

and so on.

When I was sixty-three or sixty-four

another kind of neurodermatitis appeared on my arms,

This one’s taken the appearance of red spots,

indicating subcutaneous bleeding,

on both of my forearms

that appear and then fade and then appear again a few centimetres away.

Unlike my rashes in the 1960s, however,

these rarely itch and don’t burn,

but sometimes they bleed.

One morning in December 2011,

as I was driving at just about dawn

to take my dog to Day’s Park for her daily run there,

I noticed that my shirt’s left sleeve was soaked with blood.

Swearing, I rolled up the sleeve as I drove

and pressed a balled-up tissue onto the broken skin to stop the bleeding.

The appropriate laundry product removed the bloodstains from my shirt,

but despite my best efforts the place that had bled

scabbed and suppurated for weeks,

and didn’t heal completely until almost two months later.

I may have a purple spot there until I die.

Now I sometimes get neurodermatitis on my legs, too.

I guess I’m still a nervous wreck.

       Neurodermatitis II (With Serotonin)

I’m a nervous wreck,

always have been,

even as a wee pre-schooler.

This has manifested itself

in many ways over the decades.

One of these manifestations has been skin rashes.

Those that have beset me in my sixties

appear on either or both of my forearms;

being composed of shifting red splotches

that appear to be subcutaneous bleeding,

and which from time to time

erupt into bleeding sores

that can also occasionally ooze pus,

and which itch and burn to the point

that they drive me nuts.

These flare-ups can last

from a few days to a couple of months.

I discovered during one such extended flare-up

that by holding the affected forearm

close to a shower head

shooting hot water at high pressure

my entire arm would respond

with a sensation of becoming pleasantly overheated,

the pain and itching subdued,

and that extended to feeling better

throughout my body for a short time.

Serotonin – and maybe some endorphins – I reckoned.

As the flare-up gradually died down

over the next few weeks,

these showertime benefits

also began to fade.

         A Retraining Process

During the first few days

after I broke three ribs

I had to grit my teeth

and force myself through a wall of pain

just to sit down or stand up.

As my body healed itself

these two actions

became progressively less painful,

yet my body still baulked

and tensed itself in preparation for the pain

whenever I started to rise or settle,

so I had to retrain my body

not to fear getting up from my desk

– See, ribs? It’s really okay, all right? –

My body wasn’t so sure.

                               A Rhyme

My belly’s full, but my mouth wants more,

as has been the case many times before.

  Appetite and Hunger

I’ve really had my fill

of those moments when

my mouth craves sensation

but my belly says it’s full.

Exercising will power,

however,

is no problem at all,

except when I’m stinking drunk.

             Symptoms & Fantasies

It’d been just another shitty Sunday

filled with nothing much to hold on to;

I’d bought too much food

at the supermarket that morning,

and felt stupid about it.

Just before noon, though,

I noticed a definite somatic symptom

that could have been an indication

that I was developing a serious

and maybe even terminal illness.

You’re unlikely to want to know what the symptom was,

but it gave me a thrill,

and what passes in my mind for hope,

and I devoted myself to fantasies

of how cool it would be

to rapidly grow increasingly ill,

as my dog had done more than two years earlier,

till death arrived like a borracho blackout

without having to get up in the fucking morning,

or – worse still – in the middle of the night.

The symptom, unfortunately,

turned out to be a one-off.

            Root Vegetables

I see my nude body in the mirror

and I think of a potato

balanced on two carrots.

                        Coldfingerr

Within maybe a half an hour

after my day had peaked during my morning shower,

the forefingers and display fingers on both my hands

began to feel unusually cold.

I did the obvious things to warm them up –

formed my hands into fists,

exhaled onto them,

tucked them into my armpits – but nothing.

Keyboard and mouse operations

became increasingly difficult

as those four fingers became increasingly numb.

I looked down at them;

they’d turned an exceedingly pale cream in colour,

almost white,

unlike my more robustly hued other digits.

I wondered if it was serious.

I tried clapping my hands together

and banging the fingers on the desk

to try to force some circulation into them,

and this seemed to work.

Within five or ten minutes all was back as it had been before.

I wonder what the fuck that had been all about.

               Here’s Too Much Information

During the weeks that I was controlling

some oh-so-gradually easing torso pain

with a steady supply of codeine and then tramadol,

I experienced the well-known side effect

of drug-induced constipation.

I found it interesting,

both to observe and to experience,

that my digestive system’s method

of relieving the pressure caused by the peristalsis

resulting from my periodic ingestion of nutrients

was to release extended sequences

of numerous long, sonorous, Richter-scale farts.

                          Dunlop’s Disease

I have become rotund.

I don’t like it,

but there it is.

It’s a combination of age

– my metabolism has slowed down,

and I have no car to get to the 50-metre pool

to swim laps –

and my situation;

my GP tells me that tossing back

a minimum of two bottles of plonk a day

is not a recipe for svelteness.

Therefore, despite eating ever-decreasing quantities

of ever-increasingly healthy food

– except for the odd grease foray –

my case of Dunlop’s Disease

(my belly done lops over my belt)

becomes continually more of a concern.

I dislike splashing money out on new jeans.

                      Considering Obesity Again

In my late fifties I noticed that my metabolism was slowing down,

and that without changing how much I ate

I’d begun putting on weight.

Okay, my partner at the time

prepared me greasy food,

but my weight kept on increasing after we broke up.

After I had a bit of a stress breakdown four years later,

I took up liquid-diet fasting and regular swimming

and started to lose weight rapidly.

People don’t fast because they’re anorexic,

they become anorexic because they fast.

I was fasting primarily due to poverty

and self-destructiveness,

but it made me lose my appetite nonetheless.

After losing about forty-five kilos

I was unable to afford to swim any more.

This clicked something in my mind that I don’t understand,

and I acquired the habit of eating one meal a day,

right after I finished work,

and gained back about fifteen kilos

before my weight stabilised.

As I key this onto the screen I’ve become

tired of feeling hungry all day long

and am considering either

re-embracing anorexia or eating normally again,

even if that means obesity

and having to buy new clothes.

Of course, if I didn’t make myself consume so much grog

I could munch down more solid calories,

but since it’s a survival strategy

that’s not negotiable.